Murder Packs a Suitcase

by Cynthia Baxter

  Yet all these fake tributes to the South Seas were dwarfed by the lobby’s focal point: a tremendous volcano. The black, rocky mountain that emerged from a tangle of thick green foliage towered over two stories high. Hot orange lava, or at least some synthetic substance that looked like it, oozed out of the top, beneath a cloud of black smoke. The volcano was framed by two waterfalls that splashed over rocks she assumed were made out of anything but real stone, then spilled into a dark pool that meandered toward the front desk.

  Is the whole trip going to be this intense? Mallory wondered as she slid her key card into the lock of her room after checking in. She was getting such a kick out of the faux-Polynesian decor that she hoped the same designer had been given free rein in the guest rooms. Sure enough, the brown-and-black bedspread on the king-size bed had a primitive motif that, like the design on the lobby’s trash cans, had clearly been borrowed from ancient petroglyphs. The wastebasket was made of plastic that was molded to look like bamboo.

  She was tickled to find a gift basket on the dresser, no doubt a special welcome for the visiting writers from the hotel. Through the cellophane wrapping, she could see a chocolate-and-macadamia-nut candy bar, a bottle of coconut-scented body lotion, and a grass skirt—the basic necessities for a pretend trip to the South Seas.

  Once she’d completed her tour, she hung up her clothes, dazed and a bit giddy over being in a new place—especially one that tried so hard. At the same time, she was grounded enough to appreciate modern touches like hangers that had been integrated into the Polynesian experience, even if they were the two-piece contraptions designed to be absolutely useless in the real world. As she laid out her toothbrush and cosmetics on the bathroom counter, she was similarly relieved that modern plumbing had been substituted for thatched out-houses.

  Before stashing her suitcase in the closet, she hesitated, debating whether to unpack the last thing she’d stuck into her suitcase before slamming it closed. Deciding the item in question would bring her more strength than sadness, she finally took out the framed photograph of the four Marlowes posing on a beach in Jamaica. It had been taken by one of the hotel lifeguards on what turned out to be their last family trip.

  She studied it as she lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. She was standing in the center, her wet hair clinging to her face and the strap of her bathing suit peeking out from the neckline of her white T-shirt. David stood next to her with his arm slung around her shoulders. The fact that he was grinning emphasized the lines that crisscrossed his tanned face. He hadn’t shaved in days, and she remembered teasing him about the black-and-white stubble that she claimed made him look like a buttoned-up Manhattan attorney turned beach bum. His upper torso was lean and muscular. In fact, he looked like the picture of health.

  It was hard to believe that only a few months after this picture was taken, he was dead.

  It was just as hard to believe that the happy children in this photo were about to have their entire world change. They looked like any other teenagers who were ecstatic to be on vacation. Amanda, who was on spring break, had plastered zinc oxide all over her nose. Her straw sun hat was pulled down so far that it collided with her sunglasses, making it hard to tell who she was. Only her lustrous reddish-brown hair, which Mallory had insisted she free from its elastic band for the photo, gave a clue about her identity.

  Jordan, meanwhile, had insisted that sunblock and sun hats were for sissies. He was bareheaded, his dark blond hair bleached nearly white and sticking up at odd angles. He, too, was beaming at the camera, making him look even more like his father than usual.

  Mallory touched David’s face lightly. “You would be proud of me right now,” she whispered.

  Gently she placed the photograph on the night table, right next to the digital clock, so it would be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes every morning. Then she took out her notebook.

  “For those without the means to take a trip to the South Pacific, a stay at the Polynesian Princess Hotel is the next best thing.” She scribbled the words quickly, keeping in mind Trevor’s directive about being both positive and lighthearted. “Of course, having a sense of humor helps, especially when it comes to appreciating some of the more over-the-top touches, such as trash cans shaped like primitive drums and fake tiki gods painted in colors that don’t actually appear in nature….”

  She paused mid-sentence, blinking as she stepped out of herself for a moment.

  I’m good at this, she marveled. Trevor was right. I can do it.

  But what struck her even more was the fact that she was actually having fun doing it.

  And that having fun turned out to be one of those things it was possible to learn to do all over again.

  3

  “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”

  —Mark Twain

  It wasn’t until Mallory was about to meet the rest of the writers on the trip that the wave of anxiety she’d been bracing herself against finally descended. Precisely at one o’clock that afternoon, she stood awkwardly at the entrance of the Tiki Tiki Teahouse, her stomach fluttering uncomfortably as she peered inside, trying to identify the group of people who would be her traveling companions for the next few days.

  The itinerary Trevor had given her included a list of the other journalists and the publications they wrote for. Admittedly, none of the magazines or websites had the same status as The Good Life. But that didn’t keep her from fearing that all four writers would be much more seasoned and sophisticated than she, and that she’d end up feeling like a geeky kid on her first day at a new school.

  The only plus she could see was that she’d automatically have someone to eat lunch with—even if it was in an ersatz teahouse. After the hostess sat her at an empty table for six, Mallory took stock of her surroundings. The Tiki Tiki Teahouse was really just a coffee shop that had been dressed up with a scattering of potted palm trees, wicker furniture, and more of those tribal masks with expressions as friendly as smiley faces. As for sophistication, it didn’t exactly appear to be the order of the day. Not with the toddler in the corner tossing his hamburger bun as if it were a Frisbee and another young child at a neighboring table dipping her Cinderella doll’s head into her dish of chocolate ice cream.

  To mask her discomfort over sitting alone, Mallory pulled out her notebook.

  “The Polynesian Princess Resort is extremely child-friendly,” she wrote, continuing her quest to find the fun in everything she experienced. “No pompous waiters shaking their heads disapprovingly here. Instead, the coffee shop off the main lobby, the Tiki Tiki Teahouse, offers the perfect spot for a relaxing meal. Even the menu is geared toward young visitors, with entrees like Banana-Fana Pancakes and Tiki-Tacky Tuna, which youngsters are guaranteed to enjoy….”

  She jerked her head up when something bumped against the table.

  “You’d think after all these years, I’d have learned to bring earplugs whenever I come to Orlando,” the short, barrel-shaped woman complained in a gravelly voice. She seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she’d nearly sent the small vase of brilliant red tropical flowers at the edge of the table flying. “The worst thing about Orlando is that it’s crawling with kids. If they could fix that, it wouldn’t be half-bad.”

  At first glance, Mallory assumed the woman was in her fifties. She wore a rumpled white blouse and an un-flattering gray pleated skirt that hung unevenly from her thick waist, an outfit that made her look as if she’d just mugged a Catholic school student. Her black hair was pulled back into a crooked bun and held in place by a plastic contraption that operated like a giant binder clip. Loose wisps that hadn’t quite made it inside hung down haphazardly. Yet upon closer study, Mallory realized that the woman’s face was youthful enough to put her somewhere in her thirties.

  Peering at Mallory through squinting eyes, the woman asked, “Are you here on the press trip?”

  “Yes, I
am,” Mallory replied, smiling. “How did you know?”

  “You’re sitting alone at a table for six, you don’t have any kids with you, and you’re taking notes,” the woman replied tartly.

  She dropped into the seat opposite Mallory, smashing her big, clumsy black pocketbook against the edge of the table. “I’m Annabelle Gatch,” she announced. “Travel on a Shoestring magazine.” She shook Mallory’s hand, offering only three limp fingers.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Mallory Marlowe. I write for—”

  She stopped mid-sentence, distracted by an older woman she’d suddenly spotted wandering around the restaurant, looking confused. She was barely five feet tall, dressed in a purple sweat suit with silver sequins running up the sides of the baggy pants and along the collar of the zippered jacket. Her white sneakers, which made her feet look almost as big as Mickey Mouse’s, were festooned with shiny silver patches and tiny red lights that lit up each time she took a step.

  “Someone should help that poor woman,” Mallory remarked. “She seems completely disoriented.”

  “What are you talking about? That’s Frieda Stein,” Annabelle said. “Frieda!” she cried, waving her arms in the air and half standing. As she did, she bumped against the table, once again sending the vase of fake red anthuriums trembling. “Over here, Frieda!”

  Mallory cringed. Even if Frieda happened to be hard of hearing, there was no way she could have missed the grating sound of Annabelle’s voice. So Mallory wasn’t surprised that the older woman made a beeline for the table, although her pace was closer to a snail’s than a bee’s.

  “Goodness, I was afraid I was late,” Frieda said in a singsong voice that sounded almost like a child’s. “But I see I’m not the last to arrive.”

  Up close, Mallory saw that her bright orange-red lipstick wasn’t the only makeup Frieda Stein wore. She had also applied brown eyeliner. Unfortunately, the thick, uneven lines that squiggled like caterpillars were perched about a quarter of an inch above the actual edge of her eyelids.

  Gesturing toward the newcomer with her thumb, Annabelle said, “Frieda here writes for Go, Seniors! magazine.”

  “That’s right,” Frieda agreed in her melodious voice. Patting her silver pageboy primly, she added, “And we seniors are no longer spending our vacations playing shuffleboard on cruises or golfing from dawn to dusk. We’re trekking in the Himalayas. We’re hang gliding in Jamaica. We’re bungee jumping in the Grand Canyon!”

  “Not this trip,” Annabelle said. “The only thing around here that’s likely to raise your blood pressure is the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster at Universal.”

  “Nonsense,” Frieda returned indignantly. “Last time I was here, I went skinny-dipping in the World Showcase Lagoon at Epcot. That was for my article ‘Grin and Bare It.’” Winking at Mallory, she added, “Almost got myself arrested by a very handsome police officer. But I managed to flirt my way out of it.”

  “So you must be The Good Life’s new travel writer,” Annabelle said. “The Florida tourism people e-mailed us on Friday, saying there was a replacement.”

  “That’s me.”

  “That’s not a bad magazine. Not bad at all.” She sounded impressed. “Who did you write for before?”

  Mallory paused to take a sip from her water glass. She wondered just how forthcoming to be.

  But the moment passed when she and Annabelle and Frieda all turned their heads at the unexpected sound of an argumentative voice just a few feet away.

  “Whaddya mean I can’t smoke in this stupid restaurant?” a man in khaki shorts and a garish Hawaiian shirt sputtered. “This is a coffee shop, for God’s sake. What goes better with coffee than a cigarette?”

  “Must we go through this every time you’re a guest at my hotel?” another middle-aged man asked crisply. He couldn’t have looked more different from the other man. He was impeccably dressed in a beige suit that, despite the fact that it was linen, was as smooth as if it had just been run over by a steam roller. Even more distinctive, however, was his yellow bow tie, which was splattered with big black polka dots.

  “If I’d wanted to be tortured by people who act like smoking cigarettes is in the same category as shooting heroin, I’d have stayed in California,” the first man shouted.

  Mallory immediately recognized him as the man she’d seen on the plane—the one who had tried to steal her seat and then been so rude the flight attendant had looked ready to throw him off. It appeared that he didn’t limit his boorish behavior to the friendly skies; he’d brought it along to the hotel, keeping it with him like a carry-on bag.

  “Here at the Polynesian Princess,” the second man said haughtily, “we strive to create an atmosphere that’s pleasing to everyone. That includes children, senior citizens, and asthmatics.”

  “What about smokers?” the testy traveler shot back. “Where are our rights?”

  “Never a dull moment, eh?” a deep male voice interjected.

  Mallory had been finding the scene unfolding in front of her so horrifying—and so enthralling—she hadn’t noticed that someone had sat down next to her. She turned and saw a man with ridiculously blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair directing a warm smile at her.

  “But that’s one of the things I like best about traveling,” he added. “You’re always encountering something you didn’t expect.”

  “Anyone who’s ever spent more than five minutes with Phil expects him to act like that,” Annabelle insisted.

  “You know him?” Mallory asked.

  “Sure. That’s Phil Diamond. He’s one of the writers on this trip.”

  Great, Mallory thought, groaning inwardly. So I have five whole days of Malice in Wonderland to look forward to.

  “He’s probably cranky from the trip,” Frieda said tartly. “Then there’s the fact that he’s not exactly working for a top-of-the-line publication these days. What’s that website he’s been writing for lately?”

  Annabelle snorted. “It’s got some silly name, like I’dRatherStayHome-dot-com.”

  “Actually,” the newcomer to their group said, “I believe it’s called BeenThereDoneThat-dot-com. It’s geared toward the experienced traveler who’s covered all the usual destinations and is looking for something new.”

  “What about you?” Mallory asked him. Talking to Blue Eyes about Blue Eyes seemed like a lot more fun than discussing their surly traveling companion. “Who are you and who do you write for?”

  “I’m Wade McKay,” he replied, shaking her hand. “And I’m not really a writer. I publish a lifestyle magazine called Living Well. It’s very much like The Good Life, in fact.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “How did you know I’m the one who writes for The Good Life?”

  “Process of elimination. You don’t look like you write for seniors or travelers on a budget. And you’re clearly not Phil Diamond.” Once again he rewarded her with a smile that was so engaging she half expected his teeth to glint. “I also know you used to write for the Rivington Record.”

  Startled, she asked, “How do you know that?”

  “I always do my research. I made a point of finding out whatever I could about everyone who was coming on this trip with me. And that included you. At least, after the Florida Tourism Board e-mailed all of us to say you’d be replacing the magazine’s former travel writer. You’d be amazed at all the cool stuff you can learn by Googling someone’s name.”

  “In that case, I don’t know if I should feel flattered or paranoid,” Mallory commented.

  He grinned. “If I had a choice between the two, I’d definitely go with flattered.”

  “So you’re on a press trip even though you’re not a writer,” Mallory said, trying to deflect what she thought might have been a compliment.

  “Guilty as charged. Actually, I usually send someone from my staff on travel junkets like this one. That is, whenever the opportunity to travel to a destination that seems right for our readers comes up. But Toronto gets pretty gray in January, so I d
ecided to take advantage of this one.”

  “Ah. You’re Canadian,” Mallory observed.

  “That’s right.” Grinning again, he added, “But my English is good enough that I can usually pass myself off as American.”

  She laughed. “It sounds as if you don’t get to do much traveling.”

  “I’m starting to do more.” He hesitated before adding, “I recently got divorced, and I suddenly find that my schedule is a whole lot freer.”

  “Do you believe this place?” Phil Diamond plopped down at the head of the table and glared at the other four journalists. “How do they expect people to have a good time if they can’t even light up a cigarette? And I’ve already had a hell of a day. Would you believe it started in Milwaukee, where I spent two days researching a piece on some ridiculous ice-sculpting competition? This morning, I flew to JFK at dawn, then got stuck on this ridiculous overbooked flight run by sky Nazis…. It’s enough to make anybody need a cigarette.”

  “Perhaps you should consider giving up smoking, Phil, dear,” Frieda suggested. “It’s such a nasty habit. And so bad for you, not to mention everyone around you.”

  “Speaking of things that are bad for you,” Phil grumbled, snapping his fingers at the waitress, “I could definitely use a drink. Anyone care to join me?”

  Once again, his eyes drifted around the table. When they reached Mallory, they suddenly narrowed.

  “Oh,” he said disgustedly. “It’s you.”

  “I didn’t think you two knew each other,” Frieda commented.